The Succubus's Silver Ch. 03

East Syracuse, New York

Early Morning

Chi drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, frowning at the fuel gage as she coasted down Ridgewood's slope. The village of East Syracuse was small but hilly and her V10 swallowed more gas than a dyslexic hooker in a donkey show chugging her way up the ladder to frat parties and military barracks work.

If Hell was a place that existed and could be quantified by a mortal mind, did that mean there was a department somewhere that handled curses and hexes? If that department did exist, did that mean Chinnamani could send invoices for fuel and wear and tear on her car?

Even if that were the case, it'd probably have been run like a messed up version of the Department of Motor Vehicles-- with forms filled out in triplicate signed in petitioner's blood and judged by some bureaucrat who'd expect receipts or something. Chi shuddered. Some things just weren't meant to be, and this would wind up being one of them, she was sure.

For all her complaining, though, it'd been her fault for insisting on a V-10 engine swap in the first place. After a particularly bad car chase with a pain in the ass 'client', she'd resigned herself to the 'necessity' of the monstrous engine and its gluttony. In some ways it was fitting; monster engine in a beat up station wagon driven by a deceptively small demon.

"Probably a joke in there somewhere about being able to fit four and all the toys you'd ever need, too." Chi mused to herself. At the base of the hill she started out on to the main thoroughfare of James Street that ran east-west, pondering just how long this might take and what kind of trouble she might run into along the way.

Chances were good that the secretary had warned Mark after the first time Chi had come around, but what she thought she knew and what was actually going on were different enough that he probably wouldn't have been too alarmed. All she had to do was get the car and get out, anyway. It was going to be fine.

"Fine," she said quietly to reassure herself. Janet would hold on to the coin for a few months, maybe even years, and Chi could get back to her damned vacation while it forced her to seek out a new petitioner. Chi's freedom was close at hand.

She just needed to stop over thinking things and go with her instincts. Starting with ditching her car, which she did in the parking lot behind a strip mall just up the road, along with her pistol. In case she was arrested, there was a difference between playing catch with a hand grenade and an anti-tank mine; a third degree robbery charge would get her seven years while a first degree armed robbery charge would be ten to twenty five. Nevermind that both were felonies and she'd never own a pistol legally again anyway.

"No pressure."

After a bit of finagling she dug out her breaking and entering kit and started up towards Mark's place with images of pizza and beer in her near future.

By the time she got to the address she'd been given, Chi's stomach was rumbling and that nagging itch across her body had turned into the supernatural equivalent of poison ivy-- like the coin thought that the very idea of taking care of herself was something to be ashamed of. In protest, Chi tossed the coin down a storm drain.

Mark's place was nice little duplex at the crest of a hill with a garage tucked behind it and a hedge fence surrounding the yard. Daisies stood tall in a bed of perennials near the porch like sentries, each a tiny yellow spotlight that swayed in the breeze as Chi studied the house for entry points at a safe- and inconspicuous distance. Neither of the front doors were giving up occupant names and door she found alongside the building wasn't marked either. A garage painted the same grey and white of the main house was tucked up near the back of the property and for just a moment she hoped that she'd luck into the car.

Between her and the garage a security light punctuated the grey paneling, the kind that ran with an infrared sensor and a roughly hundred and eighty degree arc. Chi pondered getting on the opposite side of the fence that ran the property line but there were more lights along the other house that'd have made it impossible even if she could somehow climb the damned fence.

There were ways, though.

Chi fished around in her bag until she found her folded up sun shade. Most consumer grade security lights used simple infrared detectors to look for a significant change in the ambient levels of IR energy being put off by things that generated heat-- like the human body. Chi gave off considerably more than that even standing idle, but between the reflective material of the screen and layers and layers of mylar blankets she'd sewn on either side of it, it'd do for passing by.

The problem was that even with such a heavy barrier between her and the sensors, mylar transferred heat and steadily her IR signature would bleed through. With any luck, she'd only need to do it once, but for the sake of her own sanity she kept the entire conglomeration at arm's length by way of the cloth strap. She edged up to the house and kept her profile low to further minimize the chance of being picked up before hefting the thing over her like a medieval tower shield and shuffling as fast as she could under the sensor.

When it didn't go off she relaxed and folded it back up, tucking it back into the bag on her way to the garage to claim her reward.

What awaited her wasn't a reward but an empty ass building with some tools and lawn keeping crap. Chi braced her hands on either side of the window, glanced back. She peeked again just to make sure. Karma was having a laugh at her-- she'd fucked up by pulling her gun on that guy and now she'd have to pay for it. Wasn't that just fitting.

"So, no car. . ." Chi mused. "Could wait it out and see where he goes in the morning. . . .could just break in and find out--" She'd committed before the thought had even finished forming. Every since Janet had come into her life something had been off about her, but now there was a chance to see the shoe on the other foot and just how it'd land when it inevitably fell on someone.

It was too much to pass up. Besides, impulse control had never been Chinnamani's strong suit.

She dug out the IR shield again along with a cordless drill and pair of screws, taking them between her teeth as she meandered under the shield over to the rear door. Once she was outside of it she tugged the cotton straps over the frame and quickly punched the screws through them into the woodwork. The screws were small, quick in and hard to see when pulled out, but just sturdy enough to hold her kit. She needed to buy herself time, though, so she wrapped her coat over her head to contain more of her natural body heat while she worked the lock over with her picks.

In seven minutes she had her ingress, and the door opened with the satisfying woosh of the draft blocker at the base of the door. She eased in and adjusted her B&E bag to fold tight to her body, crouching down and closing her eyes for a moment to adjust her senses to the building.

A military girl she'd dated a while back had taught her about the practice- something about engaging the five senses so you were sensitive to changes in the environment. Chi could smell was basement dust underlined by laundry soap and drier lint, a faint wiff of dog kibble from upstairs and cigar smoke from the hallway. The place was silent as a tomb, nothing stirred- except a demon.

Chi eased up the steps to the first floor and tested the knob- it gave right away into a kitchen that looked straight out of the seventies with sickly orange linoleum and boxes. Lots and lots of boxes. At first they looked like document boxes but the closer Chi got to them the more they made sense- some were document boxes but the majority were actual moving boxes. A quick peek revealed a bunch of expensive looking plaques and some framed photos.

Photos of Mark with some folks every bit as wolfish as he looked. It was a good look, though; strong, confident. Powerful.

"Perfect." Chi smiled as she began to prowl the house. A thin coat of dust clung to most of the place's bachelor pad furniture suggesting this place saw as much use as Chi's sense of propriety. Bare walls, boxes packed full of a life in transition, and a single card table with a laptop perched on it. Even the bathroom was untouched. What a joke. . .

The only closed door in the house lead to Mark's bedroom, something she wasn't about to get into before she had done her diligence. After a quick rifle through some of the easier to open boxes she came back to the laptop and pulled out a tiny bag for diabetic testing supplies. Inside it was a USB key with linux, a headphone cable cut just past the plug and an external hard drive.

She wasn't a hacker, she didn't need to be, but some things were just easy with the right tools-- she popped the plug into the headphone jack to keep the machine from making noise and powered it up. Sure enough, no power-on password, but an operating system password stopped her from logging on. No doubt he'd picked it up and just expected that to be enough. . .

Not that it was unreasonable; no lawyer worth their salt kept client files on home machines, but still. If he thought this was enough he was in for another thing. Chi grinned mischievously as she popped her USB drive in and rebooted the machine, forcing it to boot off the drive. Linux could run right off the drive and still see all the files on the machine, making cloning the machine to her external hard drive as easy as a few button presses.

While that did it's thing Chi set her bag on the chair and plucked a few more essentials-- her 'key kit' and a ball gag. Never hurt to be safe. People did stupid things if they were startled awake and no amount of wings, teeth or tail were going to change that flight or fight response.

Slinking over to the door, Chi ran through her quick mental check list and cycled the door, peeking. Queen sized bed, Mark facing the opposite wall snoring. Nightstand, dresser. Keys, and a picture on the stand near her. He slept naked. Kept in shape. A firm, solid outline that'd have looked good painted in lipstick--

"Focus."

Chi slid along the carpet on her hands and knees, around the dresser to the nightstand where his keys were. She scooped them up with both hands and eased them down to the carpet with her where she could work. The key to the Mercedes was the most obvious among them simply because of its age; shiny and silvery and worn with decades of use.

Immediately she went to work with the key kit, mixing some A/B chemicals into a little plastic bottle with a stick. A dash of hardener and she popped the key in and held it with a rubber band so it wouldn't move while the chemicals set. By the time it was done, she'd have a gel mold of the key to make a casting from and a head start if she actually found the damned car.

In the meantime, Chi waited. And waited.

And waited.

She grew more attuned to the scent of the power Mark had, that particular tang of mid-life musk that she'd come to associate with someone who ate too much salt but didn't sweat it out. He probably didn't get laid enough, or Tanya was a fish in bed and he hadn't had the chance to actually break a sweat. . . .the thought amused Chi endlessly.

Mark stirred, rolled over. Mumbled something. Chi pulled her Glamour in tighter, pressing her wings in to her shoulders like it'd help. But he didn't get up. The room fell still again.

Maybe in different circumstances she'd have pursued Mark- maybe in a different world, she'd have shown him the qualities of a real woman just to see if he could handle her the way she wanted. Few ever reached for that bar, fewer still held on to it, but in that moment the fantasy was more interesting than the reality.

Janet had been bad for him from start to finish, they were both damaged people looking to be fixed by one another or to be taken care of and in the wake of their fires all that was left was ashes. But maybe in a different world they could've been happy, warm and safe near each other's flames until Chi came along to show them how a fire really burned out of control.

She'd have destroyed their relationship- pitted them against one another, fucked Janet until she couldn't walk a straight line and ground Mark's hips into powder as he drooled on her back and begged for more, then she'd claim them both--

Chi blinked. Frowned.

Where the fuck did that come from?

Damned urges. Always cropped up at the worst times.

But still. . . .there was something to that idea. Something deeply alluring. It was the succubus part of her, no doubt. The demon that wanted to play- to hurt people. Chinnamani gritted her teeth in some vague semblance of disgust, trying to remind herself to keep control, keep focused. She looked at the mold.

She was almost done, she could get out of here then. Yes, it was all right, she just needed to get her shit in gear and move on. Then she could indulge in feeding the darker parts of her nature. . .

Once the gel had set, Chi cut the key out with a knife and tucked the result away. When she went to replace the keys she paused as her gaze came to the photograph. It was Mark and Janet with a pair of young boys between them no older than ten.

"You have kids?" Chi set the keys down and crept back out slowly. Kids. They had children in this mix too? Some part of her wanted to smile at the man sleeping alone in a dusty house. Sure, he had money, success and a nice car, but he didn't have the things that people considered truly valuable. He couldn't keep a relationship going, had a shitty mistress and apparently couldn't even get custody of his own kids?

Chinnamani was acting as an agent of retribution, even if Janet was a myopic piece of garbage herself, she hadn't been the one to break vows. Janet wanting the car back was just the human part of his punishment but it seemed like Karma was having a grand old time cornholing this loser.

Chi finished up cloning his drive and tucked her gear away, preparing to leave.

But was it right?

"Who cares, it isn't my problem."

#

Once she got back to her car, Chi left a message for her tech guy with promises of a free pizza for a couple hours with his laptop and went about casting the car key with some tiny metal ingots and a butane torch. Modern car keys were too precise and usually had RFID chips in them, rendering a casting useless, but the old Mercedes would've been easy to work with in theory. A little filing on the key and a quick hand polish and it was as ready as it was going to get.

Chi kicked out in the back with her jacket balled up under her head, staring at the ceiling. The night was clear and quiet and warm and packed in like she was, she could almost imagine herself insulated from the world's troubles.

But that wasn't accurate at all-- Mark and Janet's kids hadn't done anything to deserve their parents any more than she had. They probably weren't sleeping in the back of a station wagon, but that didn't mean they weren't suffering in other ways.

"So? People suffer all the time, what's that got to do with me?" She whispered as she rolled over. It was just one more fucking sob story attached to that damned coin, she wasn't going to 'fix' either of them and she wasn't meant to. It was a case of doing her time with the coin and finding a way out of it if she could. Everything else was secondary.

"Don't get attached, you know better." She reminded herself as she drifted off to sleep.